Bible Commentaries
1 Corinthians 6

Verses 1-20

VI 1-11 Litigation before Heathen Courts —This is a digression, inserted here apparently because the word ’judge’ in the preceding verses has reminded Paul of it. Note the continuation of the severe tone— e.g. the phrase ’Do you not know . . . ?’ occurs six times in this chapter. This present fault is a failure in charity.

1. ’Unjust’: i.e. pagans. ’Saints’: Christians, cf. 1:2.

2. The redeemed will be judged, but will also be judges with God, Matthew 19:28.

3. ’Angels’: i.e. fallen angels. ’Of this world’: secular questions, about property, etc.

4. ’Despised’: if the Christians were all that they ought to be, the most insignificant would be sufficiently upright and wise to arbitrate in disputes. But as things are at Corinth, the sentence is hardly meant to be taken literally, as the next words show.

5. ’Is it’, etc.: ’Are you so unprovided with a single wise man’, etc.

7. ’That you have lawsuits . . . is in itself a defeat for you’. A play on words: The very existence of disputes is a defeat for charity, you have lost your case even before you go to court.

8. He turns suddenly from the injured party in disputes to those who, by sinful rapacity, provoke the disputes. And this leads him back to the thought of the grave sinners in general at Corinth, as at the end of ch 5.

9. ’Kingdom’: i.e. Paradise. Therefore the sins that follow are mortal. ’Err’: ’be deceived’. Implies that lax teaching on this matter was current at Corinth and that many were slipping, if not already fallen. Nearly half the sins are sexual, and the placing of ’idolaters’ in the midst of these seems a sign that the two temptations were closely connected in their thoughts at least. The work of the False Apostles seems to have contributed to this relaxation of Christian discipline, § 865h.11. ’Washed’: i.e. baptised, and the two next words describe the grace of the sacrament.

12-20 The Foundation of Christian Chastity —The first three verses are answers to false teaching.

12. ’All . . . me’: probably a saying of Paul’s, which had been perverted at Corinth to justify immorality. (Quoted again 10:23.) In Paul’s mouth it meant either ’everything’ not wrong in itself’ (i.e. including things prohibited in the Jewish ceremonial law, etc.) or ’everything which the perfectly spiritual man wishes to do’ for he never wishes to do evil and has no thwarted desires, cf.Galatians 5:23; 1 Timothy 1:9. ’Expedient’: in the widest sense, including the spiritual good of fellow-Christians. ’I will’, etc.: ’I refuse to be dominated by anything’. Difficult, but probably refers to his teaching that sin is slavery and grace freedom, fully set forth in Rom 6, especially 13-16. Cf.Galatians 5:1, Galatians 5:13.

13. He quotes the poor quibble with which the impure of every age stifle their conscience: ’God has given us stomachs and it is right and natural to eat. In the same way it is natural and right to satisfy unchaste desires’. Reason alone will demolish this fallacy, but Paul prefers to appeal to revealed truth: eating will cease but the body itself will live in God’s presence for ever. Therefore the body made for God must not be debased for present pleasure. ’Meat’: ’Food’. ’Destroy’: a forcible way of saying that eating will cease. ’For the body’, etc: an extraordinary expression—Christ subordinates himself, as it were, to our salvation. Cf. Imitation of Christ, 3, 10, 3: ’The parts are reversed: Thou servest me rather than I Thee’ and St Thomas Aquinas’s tremendous stanza, never adequately translated: ’Se nascens dedit socium’, etc.

14. Proof that the body is eternal and should be respected. Vv 15-20 are crucial: chastity is bound up with the mutual love between the Christian and Christ, and unchastity is unfaithfulness to his claims on us. Christian teaching here is as revolutionary as on charity, cf. §602.

15. ’Members’: ’Limbs’. Christ animates the Church by grace as the soul animates the human body. Paul says ’your bodies’ to contradict those who would confine religion to the soul.

16. Quotation from Genesis 2:24, ’The two shall become one flesh’.

17. ’One spirit’: it is chiefly through our spirit, the highest part of us, that we are united to God, but the whole man, body and soul, is elevated by the union.

18. ’Without (i.e. outside) the body’: a natural exaggeration; the body is more deeply involved in sexual sins than in any others, even e.g. gluttony and drunkenness.

19. ’Your own’: ’Your own properly’; they are Christ’s slaves, bought with his blood. 20. Good texts omit ’great’ and ’bear’: ’Come then, glorify God with your bodies’. A splendid final hammerblow to the false Greek ’spiritualization’.